A Palestinian covers his face during clashes with the Israeli police. Photo: Getty Images

Israeli troops at a nearby lookout fired on the crowd, killing three and wounding many.

The Palestinians were mainly young men joining the ''Nakba Day'' protests, staged to mark the 63rd anniversary of the creation of Israel. Demonstrators also massed at Lebanon's southern border with Israel and on the Jordanian border.

''I want to liberate Palestine,'' shouted Raed Moussa, a protester from the Khan Danoun refugee camp in Syria. ''I intend to stay and live here in Palestine, not under the rule of another Arab country.''

Darad Saha, from another refugee camp, said he too did not want to return to Syria. ''I have come to my country, I have come to die here,'' Mr Saha said. ''This is my place.''

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Many Israelis now want to know how much official backing the protesters received from Syrian and Lebanese authorities.

''Since the Syrian army is known to control tightly the entire length of the border, it is hard to believe that a mass rush of that sort was done without the approval and perhaps even active co-operation of the army,'' Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Yigal Palmor, said.

Israeli Defence Forces spokesman Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai pointed a finger at Iran, which has close links to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and the militant Shiite movement Hezbollah, which controls southern Lebanon.

''I see fingerprints of Iranian provocation and an attempt to use Nakba Day to create conflict,'' he said. ''When IDF forces recognised the possibility of damage to security infrastructure and even infiltration into Israel, they opened fire.''

With hundreds of Palestinian protesters injured in violent clashes in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and within Israel, IDF officials are concerned the unrest will not end with the passing of Nakba Day.

''Yesterday's events could prove to be the harbinger of events yet to come in the immediate future,'' an IDF official said.